re: Public School Problems...

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One mother told Means that her 8-year-old son is scared to go to school because of another child’s outbursts. “It’s like a Benny Hill movie” when teachers and administrators chase after him, she said. Meanwhile, she said the other 20 students are “evacuated” to another room that’s not equipped for teaching, where they watch cartoons until the situation is resolved. Another woman who identified herself as a substitute teacher said students have screamed at her and thrown chairs.

Means said students with individual education plans (IEPs)—which can include those with autism, a learning disorder or a physical disability in addition to those with emotional or behavioral disorders—must be in the “least restrictive environment,” which usually means an ordinary classroom. “At what point do you say you tried and move on to Plan B, or in some cases Plan C?”

Means acknowledged that watching a student act out can be “jarring” for other students, but said there’s also a flip side: While he hears from (usually white) parents about classroom disruption, some parents of color want to know why students with IEPs are disproportionately black boys. He attributed the disparity to trauma experienced in the home and said teachers are undergoing professional development to learn how to “connect with” students from low-income and minority families, while also setting high expectations for those students.

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i have spoken on here for years that one of the few things in politics that gets me emotional (angry and sad) is this bullshite

this piece of shite is openly saying he'd rather sacrifice the schooling of all the kids who want to learn to protect the kids who are very unlikely to be educated. and then he response to a very reasonable and rational concern of parents who have their children (who did nothing wrong) suffering, with a nonsensical, vague racist comment

*ETA: just so we're clear, the students who suffer the most from these kids who disrupt classes are disproportionately black, too.

Put the Bible back in school. Problems solved

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This might be my favorite line


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He said he is concerned about whether the district is serving all children, noting, as he has many times before, that while 49 percent of the students are African American, less than 5 percent of those in gifted classes are African American. He wants to make sure all children are exposed to “rigorous academic instruction.”

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These kids can't handle regular school that has probably been dumbed down by 3 grades but he wants them to be in gifted classes too.

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This destructive mentality must be weeded out - I don't have any idea how to do that, but this idea of outcome equality must be utterly destroyed - it may be too late.

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Means said students with individual education plans (IEPs)—which can include those with autism, a learning disorder or a physical disability in addition to those with emotional or behavioral disorders—must be in the “least restrictive environment,” which usually means an ordinary classroom. “At what point do you say you tried and move on to Plan B, or in some cases Plan C?”

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If the chief causes of disruption truly are children on IEPs, then this isn't a race thing, it's a legal thing.

Principals and school boards will happily let 20 kids with severe behavioral problems ruin the education of another 600 children in the district every year rather than face a lawsuit from even 1 parent by removing those students to a separate instructional facility.

My mom taught Special Ed for 20 years; you simply wouldn't believe the demands made by parents with the threat of legal action backing them up.

Homeschooled here

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The african american kids? They tend to do just fine when given the same access to resources

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there are literally zero statistics to back up this assertion

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This is only a problem in the south. Unfortunately.

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No, it’s not. It’s everywhere. And as cultural rot spreads, it will be in your school soon. It’s probably already there.

One of the main problems is that the school’s hands are tied in dishing out consequences. A fifth grader had to chase two kids on the playground with a 3” knife before he got expelled here in STL. Didn’t make the news. His “rap sheet” looks like a school shooter in training. The most he could get was 10 days out of school suspension until he tried to stab a kid.

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it's not even about lawsuits. i believe most of these admins are true believers that we should devote disproportionate amount of our resources to "save" the kids, at the expense of educating the 95% of the student population. it's disgusting and a mentality that dooms so many black students with potential. it makes me legit angry

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Even worse they think I closing the Gap in performance between the top and the bottom is more important than increasing overall performance

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it's not even about lawsuits. i believe most of these admins are true believers that we should devote disproportionate amount of our resources to "save" the kids, at the expense of educating the 95% of the student population.

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anecdotal story here - but I spent the years 2000-2013 teaching high school math where the principal openly stated it was about preventing lawsuits - that the School Board was deathly afraid of lawsuits. That and maintaining attendance levels were their only motivations.

I don't recall a single meeting where the emphasis was on improving the learning environment.

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You take the worst three kids out of a school of 300 and find alternative schooling for them and your education reform will happen all by itself.

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I got in a bit of trouble early in my teaching career when I stood up at a meeting on our "attendance problem" - I said that our attendance problem was that we had too much of it - that if we got rid of about a dozen kids, our environment would improve immediately and the educational progress would take off.

The principal was not too happy with me.